The Tower

Chapter 34

Jade checked his watch as he stepped briskly across the campus of the University of the Gate at San Francisco, heading toward the building that housed the English department. Eight-thirty A.M. Bright and early, and he had already completed his run.

He hadn't been able to sleep last night, and he had lifted weights in the garage between one and three-thirty in the morning. When he was tracking, he was usually fine on three to four hours of sleep, but two was a little light, even for him.

After the workout, he'd touched up the paint on the bookshelves in the study. Painting always soothed him, like ironing wrinkles out of a shirt.

He had examined Allander's note under a loupe just to double-check the handwriting. He hardly needed to cast his mind back to the few scattered handwriting lectures he'd sat in on at Quantico to conclude that it wasn't a fake. The handwriting was very neat, spread in clean lines across the sheet. Allander was obviously very organized now that he'd had a little time to settle down.

A stone building loomed at the head of the campus quad, the large lettering carved above the door announcing the department of English and American literature. A few college students readjusted their backpacks over their shoulders as they left the building, and Jade's eyes followed two brunettes making their way across the lawn. Distracted for the moment, he almost walked into a tree, but was given a heads-up by a branch that knocked his sunglasses crooked. After putting them back in place, he glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.

Jade couldn't stand coffee, but knowing he needed caffeine this morning, he had drunk three Dr. Peppers in the car on the way over. Already, he could feel them widening his eyes and quickening his step.

He had been excited last night, too excited to sleep. This note was important. Often, killers make a subconscious cry for help. Or they send out a dare. Allander's note seemed to qualify as both. At the very least, it was an attempt to broadcast intent. "Welcome," the note had said. Welcome to my mind. Here's what I'm thinking, catch me if you can.

I can, Jade thought. I will.

By the time he reached the building, he felt energy running through him like a current. He ran his fingers compulsively through his hair. A female student exited through the door as he entered, and turned to admire him as he passed.

The signs on the corridor doors indicated the professors and their fields of study: "Sacks-Romantic"; "Vendleman-Restoration"; "Caston-Medieval"; "Lithemeir-Elizabethan." The lines from Allander's poem sounded older, but they were still modern English, so Jade headed for Lithemeir's office.

The secretary almost dropped her cup of coffee as Jade entered, flinging the door open.

"FBI. I need to see him. Now," he said, flashing his badge quickly.

The secretary was not an attractive woman, nor did she do much with what she had. She also looked nervous; her eyes darted about the room as though she were looking for a means of escape. Jade almost smiled as she struggled to respond to this unusual situation.

"Dr. Lithemeir is an exceptionally busy man. You'll know from his latest book that he-"

"Lady," Jade cut in, "I didn't read his book and I don't care about his book. I just need a few minutes of Dr. Lithenhaur's time."

Her hand darted up to push a strand of hair off her forehead. "It's… Lithemeir," she said cautiously.

"Right. And as I said, I'm with the FBI and I need to talk to him about a murder case-right now. So please don't give me a hard time about it. Now, I'm sure he's a pretty impressive guy or he wouldn't have a secretary, but-"

Her eyes widened, outraged. "I'm an academic assistant," she said. She appeared extraordinarily offended.

"Look, honey. I don't care what you are to him, but I gotta get in to see him right now or else I'll-"

"Please. Come in. There is no need to berate my assistant. And in fact, Ms. Jennings is an academic assistant." Dr. Lithemeir had emerged quietly from his office, and stood leaning against the door frame. A good, solid lean. He looked amused at Ms. Jennings's inability to handle the situation. Jade got the sense that most things amused him.

He was a large man, more rotund than fat and more ruddy than flushed. He carried a large cane with a duck's head on the end. It was apparently more useful for affectation than support, as he waved it about to punctuate his words. A thick gray beard and mustache sprouted from his face, giving him a pleasant appearance.

Jade would have bet that he had moonlighted as Santa Claus to work his way through his Ph. D. program.

Dr. Lithemeir smiled and beckoned Jade into his office with a grand bow and a long, sweeping gesture of his arm. Jade ignored him as he entered his office and pulled up a chair.

Dr. Lithemeir seemed pleased to have a guest different from the students and professors he usually saw. He closed the door and hobbled excitedly over to his desk.

"Now, before we begin and you devour some of my most valuable time

…" He chuckled lightly to let Jade know his assumption of importance was feigned. "You must allow me the pleasure of knowing your name."

"Jade. Jade Marlow."

"Wonderful, wonderful. Does your namesake hail from the wonderful legacy of Joseph Conrad…" He stopped and clicked his tongue several times. "Or is your 'Marlowe' more Faustian in orientation?" He smiled broadly, evidently pleased with his question.

"Actually, it just happened to be my father's last name."

Lithemeir chortled. "Well, of course. I was merely inquiring from whom you drew your intellectual heritage. But let us move on. I believe I heard you bellow that you are an FBI agent?" He seemed to take great pleasure in everything Jade said and did, no matter how banal, trivial, or offensive.

Jade considered cutting straight to his own questions, but then he decided to give Dr. Lithemeir some play. That way, he might be more helpful when it came time for Jade to get some answers. Besides, Jade enjoyed sparring with him, especially since he was still wired from the caffeine.

"I'm a cross between an agent and I guess what you would call a private eye," Jade said slowly, wondering how to explain his occupation to a sixty-year-old professor.

"Splendid, splendid," Lithemeir said, rising and twirling his cane overhead until it caught the fan on the ceiling with a mighty clang. "A private eye." He ran his hand excitedly up his chin and scratched his gray beard. "Do you spend restless hours fingering a set of dimly lit venetian blinds, gazing over the city like the ever doleful eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg?" He spun to his window and dug his fingers through the blinds, bending them irreparably. "Or do you lean back in your chair with a glass of whiskey-which long ago replaced the opium pipe-delicately perched beside your crotch as a delightful blonde legs her way into your office with a piece in her purse?"

Jade stared at the professor for a while. "Actually, no. I track suspects, Professor."

Lithemeir waved his hand blindly as he moved a stack of papers over to one side of his desk, allowing a clearer path though which to see Jade. "Please call me 'Doctor' if you must." He suddenly froze and then sat forward excitedly. "By the club foot of Lord Byron," he said emphatically. "You're Jade Marlow!"

"Yes, Professor." Jade was losing patience. Patience was never one of his virtues, but on two hours of sleep and an empty stomach, he didn't even know what the word meant anymore. "I did introduce myself. Recall?"

"Yes, yes. Marlow. 'The Tracker.' I recognize you from the papers of late. I'd imagine you're all over the television but I haven't turned one on in years."

"It's not really that hard. All you have to do is push the power button on the remote."

"Yes, yes," he answered eagerly, ignoring Jade's sarcasm. "I would be honored to help you, my dear Tracker. I confess 'I am a gentleman and a gamester, for both are the varnish of a complete man.'"

Jade decided just to proceed blindly and ask questions. He cleared his throat and began. "I'm tracking a man by the name of Allander Atlasia." He felt a rush when he said the full name, as though he was mouthing a taboo and a desire simultaneously. "He's a cruel man. Extraordinarily cruel. And he's intense, intense as all hell." Jade leaned forward and grabbed a loose pencil from Dr. Lithemeir's desk, then began to play with it. In his eyes was the look of a man speaking of his absent lover. "He refuses to stop short of anything. He'll act on all his fantasies, giving them full range at any cost. He pushes, he pushes to the edge and doesn't worry about the fall."

Jade was pressing the pencil with his thumb, and it gave way with a resounding snap. Half of it clattered to the floor and rolled under his chair.

Dr. Lithemeir looked down at Jade's thumb, which was bleeding from where it had struck the jagged end of the broken pencil, and was startled to his feet. "'Which is the merchant, here,'" he said, "'and which the Jew?'"

Jade jammed his thumb into his mouth and applied pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. Pulling it from his mouth, he regarded it for a moment and then spoke calmly again. "Just let me ask a few questions, then I'm out of your hair."

"Proceed."

"He left a quote I need-"

"A quotation, Mr. Marlow. 'Quote' is a verb. 'Quotation' is a noun."

"Thanks for the grammar lesson. Now I know my day's not a total loss." Jade reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper which he smoothed on his knee but did not look at as he started to recite. "'Full fathom five-'"

"'Thy father lies,'" Dr. Lithemeir picked up the verse. "'Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a seachange into something rich and strange. Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! Now I hear them-Ding-dong, bell.'"

When he finished his recitation, he closed his eyes, still enjoying the afterglow of the piece. The fan overhead limped in circles. Jade noticed several dings on its blades from the professor's cane.

"The Tempest," Dr. Lithemeir said.

"Shakespeare?"

He nodded briskly, "The last romance, the last play. Shakespeare's farewell to the stage."

The last hurrah, Jade thought. It seemed appropriate to Allander's situation.

"Can you clue me in on its significance?" he asked. As Lithemeir started to speak, Jade cut in again. "In plain English, please. Pretend you're speaking to your daughter."

"My daughter is preparing her dissertation in the Romantic visual arts, Mr. Marlow. I don't find myself speaking down to her very often." He punctuated his response by thumping his cane lightly on the floor. Another thought grabbed him and he no longer looked offended. "In fact, my son is the intellectual unfortunate in the family," he confessed heavily. "He's a banker."

He settled into his chair. "Now in The Tempest we find a young man by the name of Ferdinand. This Ferdinand is washed up on the shore of an island, having survived a shipwreck. However, his father is nowhere to be found." A wistful look crossed the professor's eyes as he contemplated the pain of getting washed ashore without one's father. "This so-called 'poem' which you present is sung to Ferdinand by Ariel, who is a fairy."

Jade started slightly in his chair.

"No, no. A fairy as in a flying elf. A Tinkerbellesque fairy if you must."

"So it's a song about his dead father?"

The professor shook his head vehemently, as if allowing Jade's response to hang in the air uncontested, even for a moment, might validate it. "No no. His father is quite well. He washes ashore elsewhere."

"So if this… fairy is a fairy, then wouldn't it know that?"

"Precisely."

"Then why's it telling Ferdinand his father died?"

Dr. Lithemeir grinned, pleased by Jade's curiosity. "Perhaps because he represents Ferdinand's fantasy world. Ferdinand must allow himself a clean break from his paternal tie in order to properly mature and come to manhood." He smiled self-consciously. "That's the Cliff's Notes version, of course. Please don't quote me."

Interesting, Jade thought. Another image of a dead father. The father having to die in order for the son's development to progress. What there is in every little boy. The Oedipal complex again. Why was Allander so fixated on it? he wondered.

Jade wasn't so sure that Dr. Yung was right in his assessment; he had a feeling that Allander might direct his rage toward his real parents. It seemed more and more that he was pointing back in that direction. Getting ready to go home.

"That's why he's able to win the fair maiden in the end," the professor concluded.

"Either that or he used a really good line," Jade said.

"Several of them, in fact," Dr. Lithemeir replied. "He couldn't help but score with the Bard of Avon writing his verse for him."

Jade rose to leave.

"A rather suitable quotation from a man who submerged a large tower to effect his escape, don't you think, Mr. Marlow?" He looked at Jade with his head bent slightly and one eyebrow raised. You're not getting this at all, his look said.

"You know, Professor," Jade said. "I'm not as dumb as I look."

Lithemeir laughed. "Well, I suppose we should all be grateful for little miracles." He rose from his chair and crossed to a shelf of books. He ran his thumb over the top of them, finally pulling a dusty paperback from the row and tossing it to Jade. Glancing at the cover, Jade saw that it was a copy of The Tempest.

"The play's the nook, wherein we'll catch the conscience of the crook," Dr. Lithemeir said with a smile.

"I don't know if he has one, Professor," Jade said. He tossed the book back. "Don't really have time. I think I got the gist."

The professor's smile faded as he remembered that the situation was more than a game.

"Thank you for your time."

"It was a pleasure," Jade heard the professor say as he swept past Ms. Jennings's desk. Again, she nearly dropped her cup of coffee.

"We'll have to do cocktails sometime," he muttered over his shoulder.